READ THE CITIZENS' VOICE

Digital Only Subscription
Read the digital e-Edition of The Citizens' Voice on your PC or mobile device, and have 24/7 access to breaking news, local sports, contests, and more at citizensvoice.com or on our mobile apps.

Digital Services
Have news alerts sent to your mobile device or email, read the e-Edition, sign up for daily newsletters, enter contests, take quizzes, download our mobile apps and see the latest e-circulars.

Contact Us
See department contacts, frequently asked questions, request customer service support, submit a photo or place an ad.

Article Tools

In November, Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta spent $8,000 to mail thousands of letters appealing for contributions to pay off debt from two previous congressional campaigns.

He said he needed to eliminate some debt before running for Congress again.

"I know you understand how important it is going forward to paying (sic) off last year's debt before we start our fight again," Barletta wrote.

He has not paid off a cent.

His campaign manager says he will soon.

Barletta's latest campaign finance reports show he raised $58,206 in the last three months of 2009 and had $52,330 left, but no debt payments were made.

The reports for his two campaign committees - one for his 2002 congressional bid, one for his 2008 run - show the same $263,170 in debt as his reports for the previous three months.

The 2002 committee reported that it owes $153,670 - $65,000 to Legacy Bank of Harrisburg and the rest to Barletta. He and his wife, Mary Grace, are on the hook for the loan if the committee does not pay, but Barletta has said he already makes the payments instead of the committee.

The current committee owes $109,500, all to Barletta. All told, his personal loans to the two committees add up to $198,170.

Vince Galko, Barletta's campaign manager, said about $25,000 to $30,000 came in from the November solicitation to pay off debt. That will be applied during the current quarter, once those contributions stop coming in.

"We're still getting five to 10 contributions (for the debt) a week," Galko said. "We'd rather do it all at once."

The amount of money Barletta is owed by his campaign committees went up last year because he lent the current committee another $48,000. That covered an unpaid bill from David Millner Group, his television advertising consultant. The same company sent the November fundraising letter.

Galko denied the letter was deceptive because it asked for donations to pay off a debt owed largely to Barletta without disclosing that.

"If anything, it's altruistic," Galko said. "He put up $250,000 of his own money for the campaign. How many politicians are willing to take that kind of risk? What he's saying (by asking for helping repaying the debt) is he can't do it again."

Altruism was not Chris Paige's description of the debt letter. Barletta's opponent for the Republican nomination said the letter and contributions raised "serious and substantial questions" about Barletta "taking money out and putting it in his pocket."

Federal election law permits candidates to repay their loans to their political committees if donors designate contributions for paying off the debt, said Judy Ingram, a Federal Election Commission spokeswoman.

Paige should know that, Galko said.

"For a lawyer who alleges he has all kinds of degrees in finance and runs a hedge fund, he knows very little about finance law whether it be public finance or campaign finance," Galko said.

Despite instructions from the commission in 2003 to list loan payments and the resulting lower loan balances, the committee has never done that.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed a complaint about that with the commission in February 2008, but the complaint was dismissed that November.

The commission said the statute of limitations for filing a complaint had expired "and there is no evidence of a loan that was not made in the ordinary course of business, nor improper reporting of the loan in question."

Barletta and his wife informed the commission that they were the borrowers of the loan from Legacy Bank on the committee's behalf and filed all necessary documents, the commission found.

bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com

Write your comment here

Your name

Word verification

Type in the characters you see in the picture below. If you have trouble reading the characters in the picture, click it to see a new one.

I have read and accepted the website's terms for commenting

6 posted comments

So Lou can't run Hazleton, can't run his campaign and is looking for contributions to pay himself back for loans to his own campaign. What a candidate he is.